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Prior
to commencing excavations a portion of the age range of the occupation
had been established through AMS dating of of ten wooden artifacts.
In the absence of data on the site's extent, horizontal composition,
and stratigraphy, the ten objects sampled were chosen solely
on the basis of form, and because this basis was entirely random
as regards the age of the objects, it would have been reasonable
to expect an essentially random scatter of dates. The dates are
therefore all the more striking for their consistency; at 100%
probability levels they range from 1220 cal AD (TO-5471, a fragment
of a curved dish) to 1510/1600/1620 cal AD (TO-5462, a cylinder),
with the remaining eight dates falling between AD 1310 and 1485.
The approximately 400-year occupation span represented is surprisingly
long given the generally held assumptions regarding use patterns
at Taino sites, and is the longest documented thus far in Cuba.
The earliest date is only exceeded by seven somewhat less reliable
dates from the eastern part of the country, and prior to excavation
the end date(s) appeared to provide a bit of support for the
indication of European contact provided by a single majolica
sherd recovered by Torna and Guerra. |
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In the initial season of excavations in 1997
uncertainty regarding the effectiveness of the water-control
method dictated a very limited initial probe of the lagoon bottom,
intended to yield stratigraphic data rather than any appreciable
quantity of archaeological remains. The probe was made possible
by two sandbag-and-polyethylene-sheet cofferdams that enclosed
an area of about 470m2 from which we could pump the entrapped water.
When we began excavation we had two main scenarios in mind as
possible explanations for the presence of so many wooden artifacts,
together with large quantities of pottery and a moderate number
shell and stone objects, beneath the waters of the lagoon. The
first was that the lagoon was a sacred spot into which the site's
ancient inhabitants cast their most precious possessions, but
the variety of non-ceremonial artifacts argued against this view.
The second, which seemed much the more plausible, was that some
catastrophe, perhaps a hurricane, had created a lagoon where
once there was dry land, so that discovery of a broad range of
domestic and other material might be expectable. Control of the
investigations was made difficult from the start by seepage through
both the sandbar at the south and the narrow strip of land between
the lagoon and the sea, and deepening of the excavations resulted
in increasing inflow beneath the cofferdams themselves. Nevertheless,
the work demonstrated unequivocally that neither of the initial
interpretations of the lagoon context was correct. |
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It
is now quite clear that most, if not all, of the cultural material
in the lagoon arrived there long after Taino times as a result
of the cutting action of the sea along the site's northern edge.
Although work in the lagoon added only 14 items to the inventory
of small wooden artifacts, it also yielded two nearly complete
posts plus a third with a top fork typical of beam-support members.
Such pieces might have come from houses that once stood where
the body of water now lies, but it is much more likely that they
were heaved into their present places from the area that now
lies beneath the sea. The same explanation surely applies to
more than 200 pieces of worked wood, generally smoothed sticks
that fall into three rough diameter categories, which were revealed
in excavation. Many of the sticks of smallest diameter, as well
as a number of the larger specimens, show patterned surface scarring
that appears to reflect use of vine lashings. The smaller material
very probably represents wattle from house walls, whereas the
two larger groups may comprise both wall elements and roof materials,
including raftering. |
Fork of a beam-support post |
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At the beginning it appeared that the artifacts
and structural timber owed their excellent state of preservation
to protection offered by lagoon-bottom clay that provided an
esentially stable anoxic environment. Now, however, we have abundant
evidence which shows that the preservative environment lies not
in the lagoon bottom but rather beneath the shallow waters of
the Caribbean. The lagoon is today separated from the sea by
a sandspit that is less than two metres wide in a number of places,
but examination of 1950s aerial photographs shows that almost
50 metres of the site front have been eaten away since construction
of a breakwater several kilometres east of Los Buchillones altered
current flow and wave action along the entire embayment in which
the site is situated. Investigation of the sea-covered area led
initially to discovery of 17 groups of house-post butts, ranged
along the western portion of the site front.
Later investigations
have shown that groups of posts extend for much or all of the
2-km. length of the site. The groups, unique in the Antillean
archaeological world, generally reflect the Taino oval house
shape reported by sixteenth-century Spanish invaders, but there
are what appear to be small, probably non-residential rectangular
structures as well. Spatial relationships among groups seem to
conform to the clustering reported by sixteenth-century Spaniards.
As the sea has cut the site front it has revealed evidence that
would surely not otherwise have been known to exist; on balance,
the gain has been much more than the loss. |
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Initial examination of two posts revealed production
marks characteristic of cutting with polished stone "petaloid"
axes. A sample taken from one of the posts produced an AMS date
of approximately A.D. 1680, seemingly much too late to apply
to house construction, even if the site somehow escaped Spanish
depredations until near the end of the seventeenth century. The
lagoon excavations did yield one small shaped triangle of European
majolica, which at least buttresses the possibility of Spanish
contact with the Taino at Los Buchillones although it does not
establish a specific time frame for such an event.
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Majolica sherd  |
In the second
season of excavations in May of 1998 the focus shifted from the
lagoon to the shallow waters of the Caribbean. The move to this
zone was aimed at examining one group of house posts, on the
assumption that in addition to allowing the checking of post
dimensions the work might reveal some cultural material too heavy
to have been dislodged by sea action, such as lithics or fragments
of the pottery burenes (griddles) used by the Taino in
the cooking of cassava bread.
The post group
chosen for investigation appeared to represent approximately
half of the perimeter wall of a large circular structure, immediately
adjacent to the beachline and submerged beneath 50 to 80 cm of
seawater. Preparation of the group for examination involved the
same low-tech approach that served in the lagoon work, and the
routine emplacement of an open-ended 50-gallon drum as the sump
resulted in recovery of a two-handled shallow oval wooden dish,
complete save for a portion of the bottom and part of one handle,
which is the first wooden artifact from Los Buchillones to be
recovered in situ.
The cofferdam
blocked the waters of the Caribbean reasonably effectively, but
the inflow of water beneath the dam, as well as from the beach
side, proved to be an even greater problem than in the 1997 circumstances,
owing largely to the pressure exerted by seawater outside the
dam. Despite the difficulties, however, a single day's work proved
sufficient to reveal three intact rafters that extended shoreward
from the semicircle of posts, and superficial clearing around
the poles showed that there were masses of other wood present
as well. The orientation of the poles made the identification
of the structural timbers as rafters unmistakably clear, and
the positions of many of the smaller elements identified them
as stringers. There was no question that the material represented
a collapsed ancient Taino house virtually intact, with all construction
elements in remarkable condition.
Given the limitations
of the available technology, the remainder of the work in 1998
was concentrated on limited clearing of the main components of
the roof framing and other substantial structural elements. This
approach was intended to produce a general picture of the extent
and nature of the remains while it left lower-lying and more
complicated portions of the building as completely untouched
as we could manage. At the same time trenching into the beach
was directed at reaching the structure's centre, at which point
a reasonably clear picture of the full dimensions of the building
would be in hand. Lack of a work surface that could be erected
over the remains, coupled with the increase in water inflow as
the excavation deepened, imposed very severe restrictions on
the definition of features of the structure. Nevertheless, as
work progressed it proved possible to define considerable sections
of roof framing within which, quite unbelievably, two zones of
preserved palm-leaf thatch lay.
The beach excavations
revealed the house's two great forked centre posts, seven metres
in length, one of them still whole and solid enough that it could
be used in house construction today if the ancient methods were
still in practice. Owing to the vicissitudes of excavation conditions,
reasonably complete exposure of the upper elements of the northern
half of the 18-metre circular structure marked the farthest point
attainable in the 1998 season. The significance of the discovery
of such remarkably well-preserved house remains cannot be overstated.
Until now the world has known Taino architecture from a very
limited early Spanish description, a single drawing, and posthole
patterns in a small number of dry-land sites. The 1998 excavations,
limited as they were, have begun to open a window on Taino life
that, when it is opened fully, will make the people far more
real, more tangible, than they have ever been before.
It is now apparent
that although the structure selected for excavation is a dwelling,
it is so spacious that it must have been either a communal residence
or the home of a large extended family. Around the building's
exterior, the area from which the wooden dish came, lay quantities
of pottery fragments, a number of wooden artifacts that included
some unfinished objects, a few stone tools plus many chips of
chert, and large numbers of animal bones as well as other food
refuse. Among the food remains were two hog-plum seeds, another
amazing bit of preservation in this virtual time-capsule situation.
Within the house is a large hearth packed with charcoal, and
some artifacts appear to lie in this space as well. All of this
evidence supports the identification of the building as a house,
in which an inner ring of posts, each encased in a group of small
vertical sticks, may represent a setup for the hammocks that
the Taino are known to have used. The quantity and variety of
evidence are obviously great, though the picture is still very
far from complete.
A third year
of excavations in another area of the lagoon in 1999 produced
a portion of another well preserved structure. The roof of the
rectangular building was cleared and mapped, but its structural
elements were left embedded in the clay for further investigations
when the technology of damming can be improved. The stratigraphy
revealed in 1999 suggested strongly that the original buildings
had once stood on raised posts within a shallow lagoon. Samples
of the wood were taken for radiocarbon dating, and the results
support very strongly the picture of a community still in existence
in the mid-seventeenth century or even later.
The existence of such remarkably preserved evidence
provides many answers, but also poses many questions. The first
set of questions about the house revolves around a single point:
how is it that the house has survived in such excellent condition?
Easy responses come quickly to mind, but none is really satisfactory.
A constantly damp environment, especially one in which oxygen
is absent, is excellent for preservation, but the sea-bottom
sediments into which the material collapsed do not appear very
likely to have provided such a protective environment. The clay
that underlies the site, and forms most of the seabed in the
area that the ocean has eaten away, is locally famed for its
medicinal properties, and might have contributed chemically and
physically to preservation-but how could the house have settled
into the clay bed, which lay beneath a bed of soft sediments.
Such questions are large enough in themselves, but they are small
and simple in comparison with the questions that surround the
preservation of portions of the palm-leaf thatch.
Rates of decay
and collapse vary greatly depending on local conditions, but
one thing is clear: palm leaves, even when they are still on
an intact roof frame, begin to lose their soft parts soon after
a structure is abandoned, and even the leaf ribs last only a
short time once the roof has collapsed. The presence of both
ribs and fronds means that the entire structure must have been
buried in a protective stratum very quickly following its abandonment.
It is absolutely clear from the condition and location of all
the timbers that the house was not toppled and buried in a hurricane
or other catastrophe; instead, it settled gently into the bed
in which it rested until we came along. All evidence points to
Taino abandonment of a village fully intact, but none of the
evidence has yet provided a picture of the events that followed
-- and perhaps none ever will. |
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The more than 220 wooden artifacts that have
turned up on the shore and in the lagoon compound the uncertainties.
If the people of Los Buchillones departed voluntarily and in
an orderly manner, rather than in full flight in the face of
an oncoming hurricane, why did they leave behind such a quantity
and variety of easily portable things? Why, in particular, would
they have abandoned elaborate wooden dishes with shell inlay,
miniature wooden stools with elaborate animal heads, and even
the figures of their gods? The answer could be that their departure
was not voluntary, and because we can rule out nature as the
agent, one possible explanation is that the Spanish drove the
people from their homes. Although, as we have seen, evidence
indicates that the community at Los Buchillones survived for
some time after the arrival of Spaniards in Cuba, it is not possible
to show that any Spaniard ever set foot on the site. If indeed
it was Europeans who brought about the community's abandonment,
a whole new set of questions emerges about how the place remained
undiscovered for so long, and once again the speculative answers
are far from satisfying.
The contrast
of the house discovery with the situation in the Maya area is
striking; although there are unimaginably huge holes in our knowledge
of ancient Maya life, it has always been possible to attempt
to understand that life by looking at the remains of houses,
whereas until now the understanding of Taino life has been based
on portable objects alone. Now a step has been taken towards
seeing the Taino in the setting in which they passed from birth
through life to death, and although the pulling back of the curtain
has only just begun, the picture it reveals is remarkably rich.
The comparison between Taino and Maya is meaningful at yet another
level, for a very small amount of evidence has emerged that documents
contact between the two peoples. Excavations at Altun Ha yielded
a classical manatee-rib Taino vomit spatula, originally identified
as an odd Maya spoon, from a mid-8th century context. The nature
of contact is anyone's guess at present, but there is no question
that the existence of ties across the narrow waters that separate
Cuba from the Yucatan Peninsula is indicated by the evidence.
With at least
a 400-year occupation history, Los Buchillones provides us with
an excellent opportunity to see Taino life not as static, as
it is often said to have been, but as dynamic and changing. In
the end our work should contribute to a much stronger sense of
the Taino culture as a vibrant presence in the ancient Antilles,
with new evidence on domestic architecture and construction practice,
woodworking, wood selection, potterymaking, stone tool manufacture,
and food habits, among other things. Los Buchillones offers a
field (albeit a somewhat damp one) so broad that none of us can
yet perceive its limits. |
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Part of the crew
hanging out |
Home away from home |
Preliminary map of housepost
groups |
Building the dam in 1997 |
Wooden artifacts recovered
by Torna and Guerra |
Waiting for our bus to
the site |
Dr. Jorge Calvera |
Shallow oval wooden dish
from 1998 excavations |
The 1998 excavation site |
Posts and rafters in situ,
looking North |
Lunch break |
 Casa No. 2 (1999): roof and other framing elements,
seen from the northwest. |
Enjoying supper |
Taino vomit spatula from
Altun Ha, Belize |
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